AUDIO BASICS

Hi, mi name is Nicolas Torres and I´m from Bogotá, Colombia

For week 1 of the Technology of Music production course, I would like to write about
amplitude, one of the audio basics.
I think this is a proper topic to explain because at my diary work in a theatre usually i need to
understand how acoustics work in this scenario.

Amplitude
When we talk about amplitude, we are talking about the extend of a wave, how air
compresses and modifies the wave form. The best way to understand amplitude and the
parts of a waveform is describing graphically.

Nevertheless, the form of a wave is not usually as symmetric as the example. The amplitude
in a musical concert or a speech changes drastically in terms of peak, wavelength and
trough. It is usually a common idea to consider waves as we throw a stone on a pond. But
the truth about sound is that the direction of vibration in the air is longitudinal. So, amplitude
is the extent of compression in rarefaction of the air. The compression is the amount of the
air that is getting more dense as the way it moves by. On the other side, rarefaction is the
way that the actually air is getting less than as the way it moves by. The extent of that is
what we called amplitude.

When we hear, perceptually, we consider sounds as louder or quieter. It means that, the
higher the amplitude, the louder the sounds are.

Amplitude is measured in decibels, specifically it is measured out in the air, so that's why it
is used the Decibels of Sound Pressure Level - Or dBSPL-. it is important to remember that
dBSPL is related to the threshold of hearing in the air. On the other hand we have also
dBSFS Full Scale that is the amount of numbers that can be represented on a computer.

The human perception of amplitude is known as Loudness. Remember that the amplitude of
a sound wave determine its loudness or volume.

To know the meaning and the description of Amplitude gives us a better idea to get involved
to work on a Digital Audio Workstation and how to use and put properly gears as
microphones and its dynamic range - the threshold that a gear has above the noise floor and
below the distortion-.